Prologue #2
It took a while for them to realize I wouldn’t respond or give them the reaction they were used to because I always preferred to smile my way through the day. Things did get worse before they got better because now, they couldn’t understand why I was happy all the time.
It made me sad for them . How terrible it must be to live in a world without happiness? Life is infinitely better that way, so I smiled even more, even brighter.
One more turn and I was on the Love Street where all the main stores and business were.
I passed Peace-Out Diner, Movie theater by Loveter, Serendipity Groceries and Tough Love gym until I stopped at the empty storefront.
It has been like that for the past couple of years after Mrs. Lovzel passed away and her store with fabrics shut down.
I missed it dearly. Just as much as I missed Mrs. Lovzel herself.
She was the best kind of person who showed kindness to every soul and loved to walk barefoot too.
Coming here was like stepping into a magic book, it was always filled with live textiles, colors that took your breath away, as well as nature inspired ones.
She taught me all I know about sewing and often babysat me when my parents needed it. I still have a few rolls and some of her beads in my sewing cabinet. But now it looks empty and sad, as if all the magic in the world was gone.
“One day, I’ll bring it back. I promise, Mrs. Lovzel,” I said to the empty window, staring right through it as if I could still catch a glimpse of my favorite person when Griffin’s voice broke through my haze.
“Little J?” He stood right behind me in all of his tall, handsome glory.
Griffin was the tallest of all the boys I knew and had the prettiest brown eyes.
They were like the color of the earth in the morning light, glinting with speckles of gold when the sun shone on them at just the right angle.
His hair was much the same and I’ve fought the urge to touch it. To feel it against my skin once more.
About six months ago, the guys—Callum, Griffin, and Luke—were watching a movie in our living room and I asked to join them.
All the seats on the couch were taken, so Griff slid down to the floor, offering me his.
I was already feeling all tingly at his proximity but then his head shifted, and my fingers accidentally grazed against his hair.
I withdrew my hand quickly, as if being zapped, thanking the sun and the moon it was dark in the room and no one could see my ruby-red cheeks.
It felt forbidden to touch him. But I was already in love with him at that point, and I wanted to feel it again.
It was almost like a rush of some sorts and an addiction.
Something I couldn’t imagine living without any longer.
“Hi,” I said chirpily, but he wasn’t alone. A stark reminder that he wasn’t mine at this moment. Kimmy was with him but that was nothing new these days.
She was pretty with her long blond hair and very long legs that she always displayed in her short skirts.
Maybe she liked to feel the air on her skin? I could certainly understand that.
They’d been dating for about two years now.
You’d think I would give up by this point and in a way, I did.
I’d come to terms that Griffin didn’t see me that way, but I couldn’t stop loving him.
I just did it in silence, in the comfort of my own thoughts, and hoped that maybe one day our paths may cross.
“What are you doing over here?” Griffin asked, looking puzzled as he gazed into the empty storefront. “Were you talking to someone? I thought it was closed.”
“Oh, it is.” I bobbed my head. “But I was talking to Mrs. Lovzel, promising her to bring her magic back one day.”
“Mrs. Lovzel?” Kimmy frowned; her eyeliner-lined eyes trailing over my whole body. “Um, you know she’s dead, right?” she asked, and I could swear I saw a muscle in Griff’s jaw tick.
“She is,” I confirmed. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t still talk to her. I imagine her spirit still lives here and she’s very lonely there by herself, so I try to keep her company whenever I’m around here.”
Kimmy blinked at me a few times before drawing out a long, “Okayyyy.”
“That’s nice of you, little J,” Griffin said, and I smiled again.
“Thank you!”
“Well, we gotta go.” Kimmy pulled on Griffin’s sleeve, and he gave me another closed-lip smile before following her.
My eyes lingered on their retreating forms just another second before I turned away also and slipped into Fifi’s which was right next door. I shouldn’t be looking at him like that now.
Fifi’s Goods sold everything and anything your heart desired, from furniture to clothes to gardening materials, books and fishing hooks while being decorated in happy colors. Miss Fi even had some rather funny unicorns in weird positions painted on the walls. They were riding the rainbows.
I hollered a quick hello to her and made my way over to the gardening section.
This was my heaven, a place where I could get lost for days on end, and I gasped when I saw they got new varieties of cosmos seeds.
Maybe I’ll add a few more colors to the front of the house as well.
These yellow ones looked close enough to the little speckles in Griffin’s eyes.
I grabbed the packet and moved on to the tomatoes I came here for but before I could start browsing those, the front door opened again which was normal for a store, of course, but my body knew exactly who it was.
Especially because I’d just seen him and my skin didn’t have the chance to cool off yet.
It was in the moments like this, when I could sense him on another level, I knew I loved Griffin with everything I had. I knew it to my very bone; I just didn’t understand how exactly it worked.
Mom said it was a gift from heavens.
The books I’d read on the subject explained it as a chemical reaction.
The movies I’d seen felt like love was all about kissing and passion but none of these explained how I always knew where he was or how he was feeling. It never explained how comfortable I’d always felt around him.
Maybe it was because he still protected me from my classmates from time to time. Maybe it was because he always found the time to talk to me, when Cal and Luke gave me the usual greeting and were off doing whatever it was they were doing.
I was about to jump out and say hi again when Kimmy’s voice stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Gosh, she’s so weird, I can’t believe Callum is related to her,” she said, and I let out a soft sigh. I knew who she was talking about, I wasn’t completely clueless like so many have thought around here. Kimmy didn’t understand me and that was okay.
I didn’t understand her either, but I didn’t think I’d ever done anything for her to say these things.
I was eavesdropping and that was so bad of me, but I also couldn’t move. I couldn’t. I knew I was waiting for Griffin to punch her—figuratively, of course—like he used to do to Owen and the rest of the bully team but…he didn’t.
He hummed. Hummed.
And suddenly the floor beneath me dropped. My beautiful, fruitful Earth cracked apart and a freezing wind wound around my bare feet that now felt too cold, but I couldn’t move. I wanted to…but couldn’t. Not when he said, “She’s not weird, just a little bizarre and strange at times, but not weird.”
Bizarre ? That didn’t sound like a nice word.
“Um, are we talking about the same person?” Kimmy’s voice held an unmistakable hint of bewilderment. “She talks to flowers, trees and pretty much anything that grows from the ground. Oh, and now she also talks to dead people.”
Griffin hummed again and somehow that was far worse than anything he could’ve said, and I felt my chest tighten further as I plastered myself deeper into the little wall. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I felt the cold stone against my back.
“Well, she doesn’t really have any friends, so she made them out of flowers, trees, and all that.”
“You are just proving my point at this point. She is weird! And what’s with all the smiling like an idiot? It’s not natural! Did Cal push her very hard when she was a baby or something and now her face is stuck on that expression?”
“Oh my God, Kimmy, stop.”
“What? I’m not saying anything that isn’t being said already. Even you think she’s weird.”
“I didn’t say weird, just different.”
“Um, this is not the good kind of different. It’s the kind the rest of the world would recommend she see a psychiatrist for, but because we live in this hippy town, they condone it.
God, and I’m not even going to start on her appearance.
” Kimmy groaned like my looks or clothes or whatever it was she meant offended her personally.
I frowned, looking down at myself. This was my favorite skirt, and these flower patterns I painted on my arms with Henna were so cute. What was so wrong about me? Why was it unnatural to smile?
Why did everyone keep making fun of me for being who I am, yet none of them ever explained why it was so wrong to be me? Why did I have to look and dress like they did? I was my own person.
“Can we change the subject? I get it, you don’t like Julie.”
“Baby, it’s not about liking her. I think someone should help the girl. I mean, you know how hard it is for her in high school! Who’s ever going to date her? Just a loner for life.”
I frowned. I didn’t understand what she meant. Why did I need a boyfriend to not feel alone? That seemed like such a strange suggestion, as if without one you’re somehow lacking? As if having one makes you better?
I never thought dating Griffin would somehow up my status or fill the silence around me. I wanted him in my life to enjoy it together. Silence included.
“There must be someone who will like her the way she is with her handmade clothes, bare feet, and wild, untamed hair. Let her be.”
Handmade clothes, bare feet, and wild, untamed hair… That’s…that’s all he saw about me…
How could I be so na?ve?
Maybe everything people say about me is true after all? Maybe I am the local red basket case as some call me. I just never thought Griffin would think the same. Never.
“Why are you protecting her so much? Do you like her something? Do you have a secret crush on the child of the wild? I’m pretty sure she’s in love with you .”
“What?” Griffin screeched as he laughed, but it wasn’t one of his booming laughs. The ones that shook the whole world around him. It was hollow, like he couldn’t care any less. “Oh my God, are you crazy? She’s just Callum’s little sister, so I can’t be walking around bashing her like that.”
“So you’d never date a girl like that?”
“What’s with these weird questions? Can we drop the subject?”
“Oh, don’t get all defensive.” Kimmy giggled. “I’m just kidding. I know you’re not into red heads. Only blondes,” she adds, her tone playful, her mood bright and cheery as she planted a loud kiss on him.
But mine, for once, felt tainted and dirty.
That last shred of hope I was clinging onto shattered as the road I was on cracked, splintered, and eventually dropped, leaving a gap so big there was no point repairing it.
The small packets of cosmos seeds—yellow, like the speckles in his eyes—dropped from my hands at the same time as the tears did from my eyes…and I ran.